Issues of concern to people who live in the west: property rights, water rights, endangered species, livestock grazing, energy production, wilderness and western agriculture. Plus a few items on western history, western literature and the sport of rodeo... Frank DuBois served as the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003. DuBois is a former legislative assistant to a U.S. Senator, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior, and is the founder of the DuBois Rodeo Scholarship.

Tuesday, April 05, 2016

Donald Trump says he will force Mexico to pay for a border wall as
president by threatening to cut off the flow of billions of dollars in
payments that immigrants send home to the country, an idea that could
decimate the Mexican economy and set up an unprecedented showdown
between the United States and a key diplomatic ally. In a two-page memo to
The Washington Post, Trump outlined for the first time how he would
seek to force Mexico to pay for his 1,000-mile border fence, which Trump
has made a cornerstone of his presidential campaign and which has been
repeatedly scoffed at by current and former Mexican leaders. The
proposal would jeopardize a stream of cash that many economists say is
vital for Mexico’s struggling economy. But the feasibility of Trump’s
plan is unclear both legally and politically, and also would test the
bounds of a president’s executive powers in seeking to pressure another
country. In the memo, Trump said he would threaten to change a rule under the USA
Patriot Act antiterrorism law to cut off a portion of the funds sent to
Mexico through money transfers, commonly known as remittances. The
threat would be withdrawn if Mexico made “a one-time payment of $5-10
billion” to pay for the border wall, he wrote... In addition, a Government Accountability Office report in January
said that it is difficult to track how much money illegal Mexican
immigrants are sending versus those working legally in the United
States. The odds of success for Trump’s proposal to pay for such a wall also are
fraught with challenges. Although there is a shortcut in the Administrative Procedure Act that
allows for “interim” regulations that take effect immediately without
going through the regular public notice and comment process, there are
limitations on that authority...more